President Donald Trump took aim at immigration Wednesday, signing two executive orders on border security and illegal immigration.

"A nation without borders is not a nation. Beginning today, the United States of America gets back control as it gets back its borders," Trump told Department of Homeland Security workers in his announcement Wednesday.

The first order, "Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements," calls for the immediate construction of a "physical wall" along the southern U.S. border, "to be monitored and supported by adequate personnel so as to prevent illegal immigration, drug and human trafficking, and acts of terrorism."

The order directs the Department of Homeland Security to do the following:

  • Detain individuals apprehended on suspicion on violating federal or state law, including immigration law
  • Expedite determining whether individuals detained are allowed to be in the U.S.
  • Promptly remove those individuals whose legal claims of being allowed in the country have been rejected
  • Work with state and local law enforcement to enforce immigration priorities, including monitoring and detention

The president also is calling for the hiring of an additional 5,000 Border Patrol agents.

The president also wants to see what foreign aid all government departments have sent to the government of Mexico in the past five years.

It also calls for the Homeland Security secretary to authorize state and local law enforcement officials to act as immigration officials in the investigation, apprehension or detention of undocumented immigrants. 

The second order, "Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States," requires the federal government to make sure all immigration laws are being faithfully executed and to deny federal funds to any government that does not comply with federal law.

Here, the president is talking about so-called "sanctuary cities or counties."

The order also places a high priority on removing immigrants who have been convicted of criminal offenses or charged of a crime that has not been resolved, have committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense, committed fraud with a government agency or abused a public program. 

To make sure the public knows about these cases and about those sanctuary cities, the Homeland Security secretary is supposed to make a list public on a weekly basis.

The order calls for the hiring of 10,000 additional immigration officers to enforce these laws.

It also directs the Secretary of State to make it clear to countries that diplomatic efforts and negotiations require those countries to accept any of their immigrants who are being removed from the U.S.

The order also directs agencies to ensure privacy policies exclude people who are not United States citizens or lawful permanent residents.

Finally, the act creates an Office for Victims of Crimes Committed by Removable Aliens within the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to provide services to victims and family members. The office is also supposed to study the effect of victimization by criminal aliens.

What is a sanctuary city?

The is no one legal definition for a sanctuary city. Broadly, it refers to a local government that offers some form of protection of undocumented immigrants. 

The term stems from a movement by religious institutions in the 1980s to protect Central American immigrants who were denied asylum from counties embroiled in civil wars.

Generally, the federal government classifies a government as a sanctuary if law enforcement does not honor a request to detain an individual who may be in the country illegally, regardless of the circumstances surrounding the individual. 

Often this involves a refusal to retain someone who has been arrested for a crime after they have been released because either charges were dropped or they were acquitted or they completed a sentence.

For instance, in Florida some counties have been called "sanctuary counties" because they follow a policy of not holding someone without probable cause.

This stems from two federal court cases, Galarza v. Szalczyk and Miranda-Olivares v. Clackamas County. In both cases, the courts rules that an ICE request was not enough probable cause to detain suspects from posting bond and being released.

Instead, the counties say they notify ICE when the suspects have been released.

Seven Florida counties were labeled "sanctuary counties" in a 2015 report because they declined federal detainer requests from Jan. 1, 2014 to September 30, 2015.

Many of those counties have fought their sanctuary label. They say they cooperate fully with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but they require probable cause, which is a constitutional right.

 

Miami-Dade County is still fighting it because it declines some federal requests to detain those wanted for non-criminal immigration violations.

Other cities and counties across the country have been labeled sanctuaries for refusing to allow police to stop people just to make sure they are legal immigrants. 

Others provide legal services for undocumented immigrants. 

The city of Chicago says it will not help investigate someone's citizenship status unless mandated by law or by a court.

None of these sanctuary cities or counties prevent the federal government from enforcing immigration laws. But they may, in different degrees, not be as helpful in identifying undocumented immigrants.

None of these laws has stopped previous administrations from deporting undocumented immigrants.

In fact, the Obama Administration was often criticized for its deportations, even after the former president directed the government to focus more on undocumented immigrants who committed crimes.

However, President Trump's executive order on border security directs state and local law enforcement to act as immigration officials.
The order regarding sanctuary cities specifically gives federal officials the ability to designate local governments as such.
It also gives the attorney general the right to take action against any agency that prevents or hinders enforcement of federal law.